


The Proof in the Argument

by Venivincere



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-16
Updated: 2014-12-16
Packaged: 2018-03-01 19:26:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2784920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Venivincere/pseuds/Venivincere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neville knew a secret about Draco Malfoy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Proof in the Argument

**Author's Note:**

> Valentine's Day Challenge Fic, Veela Inc. MEA CULPA for the lateness of this fic! I plead three jobs and single motherhood. Please forgive me!
> 
> Originally published on March 23, 2003 at https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/veelainc/conversations/messages/5255, then later uploaded to Skyehawke here: http://archive.skyehawke.com/story.php?no=457.
> 
> This is the first fic I ever wrote.

Neville knew a secret about Draco Malfoy.

Although his grandmother forbad him most activities and pursuits, she never stinted on knowledge, or her version of the truth about the way things were in the wizarding world. Knowledge _was_ power, after all, she would tell him, which made Neville surmise she felt she had to help him compensate somehow for his disappointing lack of natural talent. Ruefully, Neville agreed with that. He listened as she read to him from the newspaper, repeated gossip she knew to be true, and treated him to lengthy expositions of her formidable opinion on most subjects, internalizing everything he paid attention to.

A particularly astonishing piece of information came to light on Boxing day during Neville's sixth year at Hogwarts. He was sitting stiffly in brand new dress robes in his grandmother's parlor, trying very hard not to yawn by consuming tea and biscuits with her holiday guests and watching the vulture atop her hat nod in emphasis of her loud and lengthy harangue. Neville was recalled to the conversation when she finished with "…it will serve Lucius right if he kills off the Malfoy line!"

Neville must have been drifting. He hesitated a bit before asking "But...but Gran, Draco Malfoy would produce an heir, wouldn't he?" Actually, Neville wouldn't have been surprised if an heir were already on the way, given the rumors flying around the school about Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson.

"Neville! Were you not listening to Mrs. Diggory's news?" she was shocked. "Young Master Malfoy was discovered in the mansion ballroom  _in flagrante delicto_  with another of your schoolmates, Blaise Zabini, last night. His father was so angry, he beat the boy twice.  _Twice_. Beat him bloody once, healed him up, then did it again and left him that way. Zabini's father tried to stop him and got blasted across the room with a "Your son's next!" and no one dared try stopping Lucius after that. Cretin! And at Christmas, too. Oh, that poor child! I can only imagine what…"

But the rest of her imaginings were lost on Neville. Poor Malfoy?! Draco! Draco Malfoy? Fucking Blaise Zabini?  _Getting fucked_  by Blaise Zabini?

"Oh!" squeaked Neville. Maybe there wouldn't be another Malfoy heir! Neville stifled a panicked giggle behind his hand. An irrational surge of hope and terror filled him, and something else. He quickly tried to suppress it, but at seventeen, all strong emotions will out: Neville's face pinked up and prickled with sweat as familiar illicit imaginations flooded him, hardening him. He hastily excused himself from the parlor and ran back to his rooms. He slammed the door behind him and leaned back on it, hiking his dress robes over his hips. He had barely begun to unbutton his trousers when his hips thrust forward awkwardly against his hands, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he came in his pants.

 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

Draco and Blaise! Despite Neville's best intentions, he couldn't refrain from stealing furtive glances at both of them in that first Potions class after the holidays. He couldn't concentrate. His thoughts marched even less than usual in the focused rhythm a good potion requires. His mind hared off at hitherto overlooked angles of reality which had nothing to do with Snape-induced terror. In fact, had he known it, he was thinking about his situation in a manner more reminiscent of Theoretical Arithmancy.  _If_  a Draco and Blaise were possible,  _then_  a Draco and Neville could be possible as well, couldn't it? Surely he could find a proof to this theorem?

Perhaps it was the effort of extending this line of reasoning, of proving this theorem, which kept a half-smile on his lips and prevented him from noticing the pointed looks passing from Draco to Blaise and back again. A more disinterested observer would have noticed smoldering glances punctuated by fluttering lashes, and an increasing amount of fidgeting on the part of both boys. These continued over the next few weeks, accompanied by close, whispered conversations in the Great Hall at mealtimes and sudden duckings into alcoves between classes, until even Neville began to notice. And his half-formed hopes of a proof began to dim.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Love never presents itself full-blown. It grows like the magical herbs in Greenhouse Three from something tiny to a fragrant plant. It starts with a seed planted, and requires catalysts, as plants need sun and rain, to thrust forth its first tentative shoots.

Neville's was no different. This is how the seed was planted, the seed which grew into the tender, secret caring and sweaty fevered imaginings that tormented and fulfilled Neville nightly:

It had happened in the emptied-out Potions classroom just after Halloween. Potions had been particularly dreadful that day. They were making scouring solutions, and the ingredients had to be added in exactly the order listed on the board, otherwise the potion would cause irreparable gouges to be scoured into anything it touched. Ostensibly to prevent disaster to his soapstone cauldron stands, Snape stationed himself over Neville's left shoulder during the entire class, intoning instructions to everyone and hissing insults to Neville. By the end of the class Neville was shaking violently and suffering fits of ague - but for a change, his potion was perfect.

Snape merely sneered and swept to the front of the classroom, calling for a student to see him after class. Neville, suddenly relieved of Snape's attentions, fainted away with relief, knocking his cauldron to the floor and causing several square feet of dungeon floor to be cleaner than they had been in several centuries. His friends handed him up from the floor; Snape handed him detention and a mop.

He had just finished sopping up his scouring solution when he spied Draco Malfoy slipping out of Snape's office, head down and hurrying. He looked upset. He looked, in fact, as though he were trying not to cry. Maybe that was why he slipped on the still-wet floor as he passed near Neville, falling backward with a choked cry.

Neville heard a sick, muffled crunch as his elbow hit the stone floor. Without thinking, Neville threw the mop behind him and landed on the floor next to him, wand out. "Malfoy, give me your arm," he said.

Draco shot a frightened glance at Snape's office door, and there was too much hysteria in his voice to properly sneer "What do you think you're  _doing_ , Longbottom?" Neville wasn't cowed by this challenge; in fact, his resolve strengthened. He concentrated on Draco's elbow, and nervously held his ground.

"Madame Pomfrey taught me this. I - I think she gets tired of fixing me up all the time." Draco rolled his eyes and let out a single despairing sob.

"It doesn't matter anyway," Neville heard him mutter, and Draco didn't resist as Neville gently laid his arm in his own lap. Draco must have been in considerable pain to allow it; either that, or whatever happened in Snape's office distracted him enough not to care.

To Neville's dismay, tears began coursing down Draco's cheeks. He was silent, but he shook and shuddered as badly as Neville had during class. Draco must have felt him watching, and turned those lost, liquid eyes to his own, and what Neville saw there left him more shaken than anything that happened during Potions. Draco Malfoy  _wasn't_  just hurting badly. He was  _terrified_.

Neville gulped, and shot a worried glance at Snape's office door. What had happened in there? He'd better hurry, before Snape decided to check on his progress cleaning up. He steadied Draco's arm in his lap with his left hand and positioned his wand with the point just touching the broken elbow. " _Ossis Convalesce_!" he whispered, and he could feel the bone shards pulling slowly together, the tendons snapping back into place, the torn muscle bunching together and relaxing under his fingers. Draco held as still as his shuddering allowed, tears streaming down his face. His tears were making Neville panicky. What was going on? What could Snape have done to Draco in such a short time to make him go to pieces? Neville's gut twisted.

"It's going to be OK, Draco," Neville whispered, trying to sound encouraging. "It'll be OK. It only takes a couple of minutes." Unaware, he soothed Draco's arm with soft, stroking fingers. He glanced again at Snape's door, gathered his courage and asked "What happened?" in the gentlest of whispers.

Draco's eyes got impossibly wide, and a strange mewling quiver of a cry sounded softly at the back of his throat. A momentary torrent of tears overtook the flood already cascading down his cheeks. Every muscle in his body except for those in the arm resting under Neville's wand clenched tight, as if Draco were trying to hold himself together by sheer will.

Neville's heart quaked with sympathy and concern for this terrified boy.

He was also about ready to cry himself; he was shaking all over like a leaf, except, he noted, for his wand arm. Surprising, really. He steadied his mind on that for a moment, and tried to figure out for himself what might have happened. It couldn't be the pain making Draco cry, because in the six years Neville had known him, he had never known Draco to cry from any injury. Come to think of it, he had never known Draco to cry at all. Whatever was causing it must be truly awful, and more likely than not probably involved Death Eaters or Voldemort or some other sickly predator. He wished he knew what it was. There must be  _something_  he could do.

"Please - please tell me how I can help you!" Neville whispered. "What happened? Please - please don't cry!" he implored, holding back his own tears only with the greatest of efforts and a mighty sniff.

Draco said nothing, but kept his panicked eyes locked on Neville's. Neville felt as though Draco were pulling some comfort from his worried gaze, so he poured every ounce of concern and caring he could soundlessly into Draco's eyes. They stayed locked like that for several minutes, both wand and eyes working their magic. He felt Draco calming a bit; his shudders eased, his healing arm stopped twitching beneath his fingers, the river of tears reduced to a measured, swelling drip. He kept his gaze steady as Draco seemed to look into him trying to decide if Neville knew or guessed at his distress. Neville carefully schooled his expression, and could see Draco visibly relax once he was sure he saw nothing of  _knowing_  in Neville's eyes. There was only comfort there, and Neville could see, in that moment, the urgent panic drain away from Draco's face, leaving a tired fright behind. And, oh! The reflection of pain, that was gone, too! Neville was glad of it.

He watched Draco's tears stop completely and watched his eyes close, breaking their long, healing gaze. The muscles under his fingers twitched as Draco flexed his fingers. He heard Draco's deep intake of breath, heard its escape in a last quiet hitching sob, more a sigh, really. He watched him look around the Potions classroom as though he wondered how he got there. He watched as Draco's gaze turned back to himself. He felt it heating his face like sunlight, lighting his eyes for just one moment longer than required by gratitude, just long enough for the heat to sink to his stomach and knot there, and send fingers of warmth to his groin.

Draco pulled himself to his feet, flexed his newly-repaired elbow, flashed Neville a smile he'd never seen before, and quietly said "Thank you!' He retrieved his bag, drew a fine, silk handkerchief out of the breast pocket of his robes, and dried his eyes. Neville rose too.

"If you ever tell anyone I was crying," said Draco in a voice much more like his own, "I  _will_  have to kill you." Draco tried to stare balefully at Neville, but that just made Neville grin. And suddenly Draco was grinning back. "Thanks," he said again, quietly. And again, Neville saw that new smile.

Draco laid his hand on Neville's arm and squeezed it briefly, lancing him clear down to his balls with one last, quicksilver smile. He fled the classroom without looking back.

Neville spent the rest of the day wrapped up in the memory of that smile, shaking and confused. Was Draco Malfoy trusting  _him?_  He felt again the pressure of Draco's hand on his arm, squeezing gently. Strangely, he remembered the feel of Draco's soft woolen jumper under his stroking fingers. It made him feel powerful.

And shockingly aroused.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Just as the news Neville's grandmother delivered to him over the holidays proved a very effective catalyst, so to did the blistering (if whispered) argument between Draco Malfoy and Blaise Zabini in the Charms corridor on Valentine's Day.

"You're sleeping with him, I know it!" Was the first thing Neville heard. He edged closer to listen.

"When have I had time to do that?" Draco quietly spat back. "I spend all my free time with you. My grades are slipping because all you want to do is  _fuck_ , and when I finally take time to study suddenly I'm  _sleeping_  with someone? Get off it, Zabini!"

Blaise's eyes narrowed and his voice sank lower "And I'm suddenly supposed to trust you after that  _thing_  with Parkinson?"

"I told you, you git, I'm being watched! I  _had_  to do it. And I'm trusting you, too. I'm trusting you not to show how important we are to each other. We can't show that, ever, so let's stop fighting in public about it  _right now_. Do you  _want_  to get me killed?" Draco looked nervous, now. His eyes darted around, and rested on Neville, watching them. Neville saw the anguish rising in Draco's eyes and quickly raised a finger to his lips, mouthed "Shhhhh," and pointed to himself. Draco exhaled with relief, made a decision, and turned back to Zabini.

"I can't take this risk anymore, Blaise. I trust that you love me, and I love you, too, but I can't trust you with my  _life_. You're too jealous," Draco sighed, and the corners of his mouth dipped down and his chin quivered as he said "we can't see each other anymore." And with that, he turned away and marched down the corridor, eyes steadily on the far wall, eyes brimming, looking as though he had a hundredweight slung across his chest.

Neville watched Blaise realize his mistake, saw him mentally kick himself, and saw the tears spring silently to his eyes. And suddenly Neville realized why he never found his proof: the theorem was wrong. But the correct one was now evident. If a Draco  _not_  a Blaise, then a Draco and a Neville... and the proof lay in the argument between Draco and Blaise, and the most desired consequence of this theorem was almost to the end of the corridor. Neville thought nothing further of Blaise as he ran after Draco, placing a hand on his shoulder just before they rounded the corner.

Blaise watched Draco go, and tearfulness turned to wrenching anguish when Draco grabbed Neville's arm on his shoulder - grabbed it, but did not push it away.

~fin~


End file.
